Paramount Enters Multi-Year Production Pact With DC Films Vet Walter Hamada

deadline.com:

Here’s some big news. In the wake of former DC Films Boss Walter Hamada departing Warner Discovery, he’s landed at Paramount Pictures in an exclusive, multi-year production deal.

Big gain here for the Melrose lot in an executive, who not only steered DC to its highest grossing movie in Aquaman with $1.1 billion worldwide, but also was behind The Conjuring franchise, the highest grossing horror series ever with over $2 billion.

Hamada’s deal starts Jan. 1, 2023 and he’ll be the architect of Paramount’s mainstream horror genre pod, with the mission to release several, low-to mid-budget films per year across theatrical and streaming.

Paramount had a major win this fall with the horror movie Smile, which was originally destined for Paramount+, but was pivoted to a theatrical release where it amassed close to $210M WW, over $100M of that stateside. “With his track record for groundbreaking success, Walter is the ideal partner and visionary to build out our mainstream horror genre franchise business,” said Paramount Pictures President and CEO Brian Robbins. “As evidenced by the fantastic performance of Smile, there is a tremendous appetite for original, high-concept storytelling in the global marketplace, and we look forward to a long and successful partnership.”  “I am thrilled to collaborate with Paramount Pictures with the singular goal of creating exceptional movies in the horror genre,” said Hamada. “Over the course of my career, nothing has been more gratifying than discovering emerging, first-time filmmakers and writers and unleashing their brilliance in a studio setting.